


Of Piano Songs and Runes

by Matilly



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s03e03 What Lies Beneath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 17:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14242554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matilly/pseuds/Matilly
Summary: “Now, look at us. Me being not-at-all intimidating, you being a softie playing the piano,” she commented, and he has to roll his eyes at the word she chose for him.“Don’t ever use the word ‘softie’ when talking about me,” he murmurs, and the grin she gives him is a great reward.***In which Isabelle can't sleep, Raphael plays the piano, and someone is called a fang-boy.





	Of Piano Songs and Runes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EquusGirl0621](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EquusGirl0621/gifts).



He’s so focused in the sound coming from the piano keys that he doesn’t hear her coming. He doesn’t hear her heels, nor does he notice her heartbeat in a rather silent hotel. His mind is solely in the song he’s played for his baby sister countless times, and it’s only when he finishes and the keys are silent that he hears her calm breathing, the _thump_ of her heart. His surprise is met with a smile.

“Isabelle,” he breathes, like some lovesick teenager, smiling at her.

“I didn’t know you played,” she says as she steps closer, and he notices something off about the way she stands; it’s not as straight as usual, not as confident.

“I got better with time,” he returns, because it’s true, being immortal had its benefits.

Isabelle sits down next to him, head on his shoulder, and Raphael doesn’t ask anything, doesn’t press her to talk about the matter that makes her smile not reach her eyes. He simply takes her hand, cold against warm, and gives her as much time as she needs to gather her thoughts.

“My mother is being stripped of her runes,” she finally says, minutes later, and he knows enough about the Nephilim to know what it means. “And I keep thinking that could’ve been me months ago, and then I wonder if there really is nothing we can do, and now I’m here because I don’t want to spend another night awake thinking if there’s something we can do.” She says it all in a row, like she has waited a long time to get it off her chest, and he finds himself at a loss for words, so he just rubs circles on her hand to relax her. “My father won’t be de-runed, and that’s unfair. He cheated on her, and he was in the Circle, and now he’ll just be transferred to San Francisco with a note on how he shouldn’t do it again, and I can’t help but feel this is worse because she’s a woman, and because the Clave is intimidated by her.”

If there is something strange about her rant is her admission that her father had cheated on her mother. Raphael is sure that isn’t public knowledge, which only supports his idea that Isabelle has little to no one she can talk to these days.

“I can’t say why she’s being de-runed, but from the few times I’ve met her, intimidating is something you get from her, yes,” he says, only half-joking because Isabelle _can_ be intimidating, and she looks up at him, frowning like he has said something that isn’t known to the whole Shadow world. “You can be intimidating and you know it; doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.”

“Are you intimidated by me, then?”

“I was. You did kick down a wall of the hotel, and almost burned a hole in me. I wasn’t fond of you back then,” he replies, and it comes as a personal victory when he makes her chuckle and forget about her problems for a second. It has done the same for him.

“Now, look at us. Me being not-at-all intimidating, you being a softie playing the piano,” she commented, and he has to roll his eyes at the word she chose for him.

“Don’t ever use the word ‘softie’ when talking about me,” he murmurs, and the grin she gives him is a great reward.

“No, you’re my badass fang-boy,” she retorts, and this time he properly glares at her, because that’s even worse.

“Raphael is _fine_ ,” he mutters, and her hand curls tighter around his like a caress.

Isabelle doesn’t say anything else, and neither does he. He can’t say her mother deserves to be de-runed or not, or that it isn’t because she’s a woman. He knows she didn’t come to him to look for answers, but instead because she needed to get out of the Institute, away from trying to find solutions for the case.

“Did you use to play for Rosa?” she asks quietly, minutes later, when her heartbeat has taken over his ears and relaxed him.

“For all of them, but specially for her, yes.”

“I’m sure she loved it.” She has no way of knowing it, but Raphael doesn’t care. His baby sister has left him three days ago, and he can never ask her, after all. So, he takes Isabelle’s words for it.

“You should sleep,” he says instead, finishing the topic about his sister.

“I don’t want to go back to the Institute.” He swears he can hear the pout behind her voice, the corner of his lips turning up.

“I was going to suggest you sleep in my bed,” he returns, and he can hear the moment her heart skips a beat, then beats faster, and her eyes are on his again. “…Or not.”

“I didn’t mean- I don’t want to disturb- I didn’t come here to-”

He shushes her with a kiss on her forehead.

“You know where it is. I’ll only need my bed in the morning, so it’s all yours.”

“Will you join me?”

Her request takes him by surprise, because that hadn’t been in his plans. It’s not that he has urgent things to do, or that he wouldn’t want to keep her company, it’s that he can’t really see why she’d want to sleep with a cold mass next to her when she could have a warm bed all to herself. Possibly for the same reason why he is testing his self-control whenever he’s around her.

“Yes.”

Isabelle is asleep a couple of minutes after curling into his side, and for the first time since he received the call about Rosa, Raphael drifts off to sleep just as fast, and doesn’t wake up screaming.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this Instagram post](https://www.instagram.com/p/BhNG6SvAdk3/).
> 
> And, no, I don't know where fang-boy came from either.


End file.
